{"id":4607,"date":"2009-01-07T06:17:20","date_gmt":"2009-01-06T22:17:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/curtins-john-de-laeter-is-inducted-into-the-wa-science-hall-of-fame\/"},"modified":"2022-12-07T13:06:18","modified_gmt":"2022-12-07T05:06:18","slug":"curtins-john-de-laeter-is-inducted-into-the-wa-science-hall-of-fame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/curtins-john-de-laeter-is-inducted-into-the-wa-science-hall-of-fame\/","title":{"rendered":"Curtin’s John de Laeter is inducted into the WA Science Hall of Fame"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Order of Australia and recent Mining Hall of Fame recipient is the third.<\/p>\n

John de Laeter has a list of achievements that could stretch into the stars and now the leading astrophysicist, nuclear physicist, educator and researcher has been inducted into the WA Science Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n

The Order of Australia and recent Mining Hall of Fame recipient is the third entrant appointed by the Premier in recognition of his long-standing commitment and outstanding contribution to science in WA.<\/p>\n

Professor de Laeter said it was a surprising thrill to join the Nobel Prize-winning pair inducted last year.<\/p>\n

‘I’m pleased with what I’ve been able to achieve, I haven’t done anything earth shattering but I’ve been working away at problems over a period of time and have added some pieces to the puzzle.’<\/p>\n

Those pieces, however, are no small feat.<\/p>\n

Since first studying in the 1950s Professor de Laeter has corrected the atomic weights of 16 elements, mapped the geological ages of WA’s rocks to help mining exploration, found a safe storage for nuclear waste and helped establish Scitech<\/a>, Technology Park<\/a>, the Science and Mathematics Education Centre (SMEC)<\/a> and the Gravity Discovery Centre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘When I started science in WA was pretty small, little bits of pieces everywhere and overall an insignificant set up,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘With all the work being done now there’s absolutely no comparison.<\/p>\n

‘The talent of the winners and finalists in the Science Awards, and even the existence of the awards is an indication of the quality we have.<\/p>\n

‘The future is very bright.’<\/p>\n

Professor de Laeter said winning the bid for the international Square Kilometre Array<\/a> telescope program would make WA’s future even brighter.<\/p>\n

‘It would be the greatest thing in science to ever happen to WA,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘WA would be the world’s leading centre for radio astronomy.<\/p>\n

‘Curtin is making a very big contribution to the application with the recent opening of the Institute of Radio Astronomy (CIRA), which is also a landmark in Curtin’s endeavours.’<\/p>\n

The former Head of the Department of Physics at the WA Institute of Technology (now Curtin) said scientists had a responsibility to work in the community.<\/p>\n

‘Coming from being a science teacher, education is very important to me,’ he said.<\/p>\n

‘Since it started in 1975, SMEC has grown into the most prestigious and preeminent science education centre in the world.<\/p>\n

‘I feel very pleased I was involved with Scitech, it reaches out to all areas and is a WA icon in my opinion.’<\/p>\n

Reflecting on his accomplished career, Professor de Laeter said the most important parts of science were friends and fun.<\/p>\n

‘Science is very exciting and very hard work \u2013 you’re solving problems that have never been tested and have the opportunity to break fresh ground.<\/p>\n

‘I’ve made many good friends from across the world and been to most countries for conferences and speeches.<\/p>\n

‘I have had a very fortunate life \u2013 I went from science teacher to researcher and never regretted anything.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John de Laeter has a list of achievements that could stretch into the stars and now the leading astrophysicist, nuclear physicist, educator and researcher has been inducted into the WA Science Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-4607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Jarrad","last_name":"Long","display_name":"Jarrad Long"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 09:55:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4607"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=4607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}